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Grandma was fat and ugly. Not fat-jolly or fat-cuddly, just fat-full, full of food, full of sweets.
Her favourites were penny sweets, the sort she could buy at the village shop when she was little. Rock-hard lollies on wooden sticks, mini sherbety Swizzels, sweet cigarettes in cartons with pictures of cowboys on, tiny fruity balls called Millions, gobstoppers with seeds in the middle, and her favourite of all, tubes of Parma Violets she pretended were pills. Nowadays she could buy them all in the Co-op. Giant cellophane bags called ‘Children’s Party Selection’ containing the lot. Not as much fun as choosing each one separately – but there were so many! She could suck down all of a tube of Parma Violets, the whole lot in one go. No need to keep some for later.
She ate so many she smelt of sweets. As she walked down the street kids would follow, sniffing her sugary scent. Like the pied piper she would lure them to a cave and imprison them till their parents paid up. No, not really – as she walked down the street nobody followed as nobody cared. Another fat, old, ugly lady full of sweets.
One day, on her way to the Co-op, she passed a new shop.
The new shop used to be a newsagent. She never used it as it was full of chocolate bars and crisps and she didn’t like them. The new shop smelt good. It smelt like her. She went in. The counters and shelves were stacked with giant sugary sweets. Not the little sweets she knew but big fat ones. Fat like her. Gross sugary bars of green and white and blue and purple.
Stacks of giant balls, coloured strawberry and cream, with sprinkles on. Trays of blocks and spheres and cubes and pyramids and hearts in all the colours of Refreshers and Spangles and Opal Fruits and the flavours of the rainbow, and, best of all, stacks and stacks of giant cakes of Parma Violet. Grandma filled her basket. She bought tons. So many they sold her a fancy wicker basket to carry them all.
So, the fat, ugly, old Grandma walked home carrying her basket of sweets. On the way, she met a wolf who told her about another grandma. No, not really – on the way she met no one, and nobody talked to her as nobody cared.
When she got home, she set about eating her sweets. She started with the plainest-looking ones so she could look forward to the fancy ones. She tore into the green and white bars. Mmmm! – they were so good. Then the blue and the purple. Next, she licked the giant balls clean of their sprinkles down to a sticky pink-and-cream centre. She gorged on her basket of shapes, colours, textures, and tastes until her mouth foamed, her eyes watered, and her tongue was sore. Nearly everything was gone, but the Parma Violets were last. ‘Ready’ she thought! She sucked her fingers clean. Slowly and lovingly, she ground the tablets to a grit that spattered and showered the roof of her mouth before bathing her taste buds in their perfumed soapiness. ‘Soapy’ she thought. ‘Soapy but so good.’
But then a bubble.
First one little bubbly fart slipped out. Who cares? Nobody. Fat grandmas fart, don’t they? But it was followed by another, and then another. She waddled toward the toilet, loudly projecting her continuous fragrant stream of sweetness as she went. She dropped her drawers
and aimed her fat arse at the seat. Just in time for an avalanche of soapy bath products and sugar to thunder into the pan. It kept on coming, overspilling the pedestal and onto the lino, forming a mosaic of multicoloured sugary crystals that spread about her just like Millions.
Next day, Grandma was thin and popular. She was still old but now she looked like Joan Collins. People liked her because she smelt of soap and not sweeties, but mainly because she was thin.
February 6, 2020